1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system that detects occurrence of a monitor event within an image capture range and to an event detecting method. The present invention also relates to an image-processing apparatus disposed on an image capture side in a monitoring system. The present invention also relates to a management apparatus that records a captured image in accordance with occurrence of a monitor event within a system in the monitoring system. The present invention also relates to a program for realizing functions of the image-processing apparatus and the management apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, monitoring systems are used in various fields, such as in the establishment of security systems.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a known structure of a security system. Referring to FIG. 1, the security system includes an image-capturing camera 1 and a management apparatus 3 managing the image-capturing camera 1. In the example shown in FIG. 1, a display device 5 is externally connected to the management apparatus 3.
Moving body detection is a typical function of security systems. Moving body detection is a function of detecting intrusion of a moving body, such as a human being or a vehicle, into an image capture range. In general, when a moving body is detected, an alert is sent out and a captured image is recorded.
In known security systems, the image-capturing camera 1 is provided with only a function of distributing a captured image, and the management apparatus 3 performs a moving body detection process.
For example, the image-capturing camera 1 shown in FIG. 1 includes an image-capturing element 11, a camera signal processor 13, a central processing unit (CPU) 15, an image compressor 17, and a network processor 19. The camera signal processor 13 is a processing device that performs signal amplification processing, analog/digital conversion processing, exposure control processing, and other processing necessary for converting a captured image into a video signal. The image compressor 17 is a processing device that compresses and encodes a captured image in, for example, a joint photographic experts group (JPEG) format or a moving picture experts group (MPEG) format.
The management apparatus 3 includes a network processor 31, a CPU 33, a display controller 35, an image decompressor 37, an event detector 39, a disk controller 41, and a hard disk device 43. The event detector 39 is a processing device that detects intrusion of a moving body using image processing of a captured image received via a network. The network is based on the communication standard defined by, for example, the IEEE 802.3 standard.
FIG. 2 shows an example of function allocation of processing algorithms for moving body detection. Referring to FIG. 2, the image-capturing camera 1 performs processing from image capture to transfer of a captured image to a network. The management apparatus 3 performs a series of processes from motion detection to alert execution.
A known technology is described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-233889.